Experts determine age of book 'nobody can read'

The Voynich manuscript's unintelligible writings and strange illustrations have defied every attempt at understanding their meaning.

(PhysOrg.com) -- While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, one of the most mysterious writings ever found  penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands  a research team at the UA solved one of its biggest mysteries: When was the book made?

University of Arizona researchers have cracked one of the puzzles surrounding what has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript"  the Voynich manuscript, a book filled with drawings and writings nobody has been able to make sense of to this day.

Using radiocarbon dating, a team led by Greg Hodgins in the UA's department of physics has found the manuscript's parchment pages date back to the early 15th century, making the book a century older than scholars had previously thought.

This tome makes the "DaVinci Code" look downright lackluster: Rows of text scrawled on visibly aged parchment, flowing around intricately drawn illustrations depicting plants, astronomical charts and human figures bathing in  perhaps  the fountain of youth. At first glance, the "Voynich manuscript" appears to be not unlike any other antique work of writing and drawing.

An alien language

But a second, closer look reveals that nothing here is what it seems. Alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, are arranged into what appear to be words and sentences, except they don't resemble anything written  or read  by human beings.

Hodgins, an assistant research scientist and assistant professor in the UA's department of physics with a joint appointment at the UA's School of Anthropology, is fascinated with the manuscript.

"Is it a code, a cipher of some kind? People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use  the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven't figured it out."

A chemist and archaeological scientist by training, Hodgins works for the NSF Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, or AMS, Laboratory, which is shared between physics and geosciences. His team was able to nail down the time when the Voynich manuscript was made.

Currently owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, the manuscript was discovered in the Villa Mondragone near Rome in 1912 by antique book dealer Wilfrid Voynich while sifting through a chest of books offered for sale by the Society of Jesus. Voynich dedicated the remainder of his life to unveiling the mystery of the book's origin and deciphering its meanings. He died 18 years later, without having wrestled any its secrets from the book.

Fast-forward to 2009: In the basement underneath the UA's Physics and Atmospheric Sciences building, Hodgins and a crew of scientists, engineers and technicians stare at a computer monitor displaying graphs and lines. The humming sound of machinery fills the room and provides a backdrop drone for the rhythmic hissing of vacuum pumps.

Stainless steel pipes, alternating with heavy-bodied vacuum chambers, run along the walls.

This is the heart of the NSF-Arizona AMS Laboratory: an accelerator mass spectrometer capable of sniffing out traces of carbon-14 atoms that are present in samples, giving scientists clues about the age of those samples.

Greg Hodgins checks on the accelerator mass spectrometer, which narrowed the age of the book down to 1404 to 1438, in the early Renaissance. Credit: Daniel Stolte/UANews

Radiocarbon dating: looking back in time

Carbon-14 is a rare form of carbon, a so-called radioisotope, that occurs naturally in the Earth's environment. In the natural environment, there is only one carbon-14 atom per trillion non-radioactive or "stable" carbon isotopes, mostly carbon-12, but with small amounts of carbon-13. Carbon-14 is found in the atmosphere within carbon dioxide gas.

Plants produce their tissues by taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and so accumulate carbon-14 during life. Animals in turn accumulate carbon-14 in their tissues by eating plants, or eating other organisms that consume plants.

When a plant or animal dies, the level of carbon-14 in it remains drops at a predictable rate, and so can be used to calculate the amount of time that has passed since death.

What is true of plants and animals is also true of products made from them. Because the parchment pages of the Voynich Manuscript were made from animal skin, they can be radiocarbon-dated.

Pointing to the front end of the mass spectrometer, Hodgins explains the principle behind it. A tiny sample of carbon extracted from the manuscript is introduced into the "ion source" of the mass spectrometer.

"This causes the atoms in the sample to be ionized," he explained, "meaning they now have an electric charge and can be propelled by electric and magnetic fields."

Ejected from the ion source, the carbon ions are formed into a beam that races through the instrument at a fraction of the speed of light. Focusing the beam with magnetic lenses and filters, the mass spectrometer then splits it up into several beams, each containing only one isotope species of a certain mass.

"Carbon-14 is heavier than the other carbon isotopes," Hodgins said. "This way, we can single out this isotope and determine how much of it is present in the sample. From that, we calculate its age."

Dissecting a century-old book

To obtain the sample from the manuscript, Hodgins traveled to Yale University, where conservators had previously identified pages that had not been rebound or repaired and were the best to sample.

"I sat down with the Voynich manuscript on a desk in front of me, and delicately dissected a piece of parchment from the edge of a page with a scalpel," Hodgins says.

He cut four samples from four pages, each measuring about 1 by 6 millimeters (ca. 1/16 by 1 inch) and brought them back to the laboratory in Tucson, where they were thoroughly cleaned.

"Because we were sampling from the page margins, we expected there are a lot of finger oils adsorbed over time," Hodgins explains. "Plus, if the book was re-bound at any point, the sampling spots on these pages may actually not have been on the edge but on the spine, meaning they may have had adhesives on them."

"The modern methods we use to date the material are so sensitive that traces of modern contamination would be enough to throw things off."

Next, the sample was combusted, stripping the material of any unwanted compounds and leaving behind only its carbon content as a small dusting of graphite at the bottom of the vial.

"In radiocarbon dating, there is this whole system of many people working at it," he said. "It takes many skills to produce a date. From start to finish, there is archaeological expertise; there is biochemical and chemical expertise; we need physicists, engineers and statisticians. It's one of the joys of working in this place that we all work together toward this common goal."

The UA's team was able to push back the presumed age of the Voynich manuscript by 100 years, a discovery that killed some of the previously held hypotheses about its origins and history.

Elsewhere, experts analyzed the inks and paints that makes up the manuscript's strange writings and images.

"It would be great if we could directly radiocarbon date the inks, but it is actually really difficult to do. First, they are on a surface only in trace amounts" Hodgins said. "The carbon content is usually extremely low. Moreover, sampling ink free of carbon from the parchment on which it sits is currently beyond our abilities. Finally, some inks are not carbon based, but are derived from ground minerals. They're inorganic, so they don't contain any carbon."

"It was found that the colors are consistent with the Renaissance palette  the colors that were available at the time. But it doesn't really tell us one way or the other, there is nothing suspicious there."

While Hodgins is quick to point out that anything beyond the dating aspect is outside his expertise, he admits he is just as fascinated with the book as everybody else who has tried to unveil its history and meaning.

"The text shows strange characteristics like repetitive word use or the exchange of one letter in a sequence," he says. "Oddities like that make it really hard to understand the meaning."

"There are types of ciphers that embed meaning within gibberish. So it is possible that most of it does mean nothing. There is an old cipher method where you have a sheet of paper with strategically placed holes in it. And when those holes are laid on top of the writing, you read the letters in those holes."

"Who knows what's being written about in this manuscript, but it appears to be dealing with a range of topics that might relate to alchemy. Secrecy is sometimes associated with alchemy, and so it would be consistent with that tradition if the knowledge contained in the book was encoded. What we have are the drawings. Just look at those drawings: Are they botanical? Are they marine organisms? Are they astrological? Nobody knows."

"I find this manuscript is absolutely fascinating as a window into a very interesting mind. Piecing these things together was fantastic. It's a great puzzle that no one has cracked, and who doesn't love a puzzle?"

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It is interesting that they specifically talk about removing "recent" contamination to get the original carbon date. Has any analysis been done OF this contamination that might lead to some idea of where the book has been since it was written.

If it was found in Rome, but written, say in France, couldn't there be some pollen, charcoal, oil, sea salt or something that would provide a rough path of where it's been?

The age of the parchment itself says nothing about the age of the text written upon it. It could simply be a Victorian fake. I like the pollen analysis idea, but there have probably been a lot of contaminents.

The age of the parchment itself says nothing about the age of the text written upon it. It could simply be a Victorian fake. I like the pollen analysis idea, but there have probably been a lot of contaminents.

Seems like a lot of trouble for a Victorian-era hoaxster to go to. Much easier to get some paper and "age" it with acid or something.

The age of the parchment itself says nothing about the age of the text written upon it. It could simply be a Victorian fake. I like the pollen analysis idea, but there have probably been a lot of contaminents.

Seems like a lot of trouble for a Victorian-era hoaxster to go to. Much easier to get some paper and "age" it with acid or something.

Not really. It's a pretty common technique to cut up old manuscripts, scrape off the existing text, then put some faked writing or drawing on it and pass it off as ancient.

I watched a full length documentary on this a few days ago on television on the history channel.

There was more to the dating process than just what was mentioned here. They took minute samples of the dyes involved and tested to make sure they were correct to the period technology and it was.

This book also has several large foldouts which can be a few pages across. It would have been relatively expensive to make, and the experts estimated it would have taken 2 years for making the caligraphy and the art in the book.

When I watched this show I realized that there may not be a way to decypher the text, because it could be in a code, not just a simple cypher. The cryptographer would be trying to read something in an unknown ancient dialect of an unknown language in an unknown cypher/code system.

It could even be a true "code language" made up by some linquistic genius like Tolkien, except 600 years ago.

The age of the parchment itself says nothing about the age of the text written upon it. It could simply be a Victorian fake. I like the pollen analysis idea, but there have probably been a lot of contaminents.

Seems like a lot of trouble for a Victorian-era hoaxster to go to. Much easier to get some paper and "age" it with acid or something.

Most paper from the Victorian era was recycled manuscripts from prior eras. usually when dating a document the ink provides a more precise date due to this practice.

It's always possible that this is the work of some 15th Century prankster, attempting to troll future generations.

A modern person could put some nonsensical gibberish formed into words and put it onto one of those special long lasting gold plated DVDs, along with some weird, random pictures, and then bury it deep in the ground in an air tight box.

Future generations will be searching for its meaning for hundreds of years later, in the hope that it's a code that tells us something profound, but really it's the work of some nutter.

Okay, I did some reading. The pages are vellum, which was indeed often scraped and reused. Wiki: "In the later Middle Ages [c. 1300-1500] the surface of the vellum was usually scraped away with powdered pumice, irretrievably losing the writing."

It could also be something like the Codex Seraphinianus, a modern book by Italian designer Luigi Serafini, hand-written in an as-yet untranslated script of his own creation, and filled with fantastical and surreal images of a world like ours, but also very--very--differrent. You can probably get a copy through your local library, or through interlibrary loan. An amazing book. Well worth the time to check out.

It's easy to get caught up in the fantasy of some alien language code with an awe-inspiring revelation, but sadly Occam's Razor kicks in and suggests that what we have here is trolling and/or just plain nutbaggishness.

C14 doesn't change with seasons. C14 is produced by cosmic ray debris (neutrons) colliding with nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere. It does not depend on solar radiation.

The cosmic ray flux is approximately constant over long time spans, and C14 in the atmosphere has reasonably long life, so that fast fluctuations get smoothed out.

There can be regional variations in C14, but at least for the last few thousand years one can construct local calibration curves, based on measurements of C14 abundance in annual sediment layers, glacier layers, or tree rings -- for which date can be established independently of C14 by simple counting.

A modern person could put some nonsensical gibberish formed into words and put it onto one of those special long lasting gold plated DVDs, along with some weird, random pictures, and then bury it deep in the ground in an air tight box.

Not quite. Frequency analysis of the letters and words shows that it's organized, not random

From the pictures I've seen of the book, I think it resembles a book dealing with herbal medicine and astronomical system understanding, something similar about how biodynamic treatment plants. Then it is known very logical that the book is written in a kind of code that is really hard to decipher, for just that people do not understand the book knowledge does not come to make a medical treatment that is directly fatal.

It doesn't appear in either the article or the following comments that the manuscript has largely been credited to Fr. Roger Bacon a contemporary of Fr. Albertus Magnus. Both 15th century theological scholars and nascent scientists. They both have been thought to be the early fathers of modern science for their work in "experimentation" to prove a thesis.

It doesn't appear in either the article or the following comments that the manuscript has largely been credited to Fr. Roger Bacon a contemporary of Fr. Albertus Magnus. Both 15th century theological scholars and nascent scientists. They both have been thought to be the early fathers of modern science for their work in "experimentation" to prove a thesis.

That's because it hasn't. Voynich spent his life trying to prove Bacon wrote it, but there's little to no evidence for it. Since Bacon died over 100 years before the earliest dating of the vellum, he couldn't have been the author.

Methinks some people are getting their historical Bacons confused. Roger Bacon ("Doctor Mirabilis") was 13th century. Francis Bacon (Father of the Scientific Method) was late 16th century. Kevin Bacon was 20th century (sry, couldn't help it). Both gentleman had been versed in Alchemy, so they are often mistakenly confused with one another.

Even with the dating of the parchment of the Voynich MSS at @ 100 yrs earlier than previously believed, it is still too late of a time period to be Roger Bacon, however it still leaves it in the same ballpark of Francis Bacon. Considering that there is significant evidence to show that it was penned by a young child of a wealthy family, there remains an argument for it being the work of Francis Bacon, although it is more likely that it was something that found it's way into his possession rather than being a product of his own hand.

Dating this to the Renaissance puts it into a whole different light, considering the works of Marsilio Ficino.

Although considering this new dating, I'm willing to put my money on Johannes Trithemius (look at his Steganographia for a comparison...which uses a cipher still unbreakable to this day), who was the mentor/teacher of the great Renaissance Alchemists Paracelsus and Henry Cornelius Agrippa.

Although considering this new dating, I'm willing to put my money on Johannes Trithemius (look at his Steganographia for a comparison...which uses a cipher still unbreakable to this day), who was the mentor/teacher of the great Renaissance Alchemists Paracelsus and Henry Cornelius Agrippa.

Fascinating, and he seems to fit. I think Agrippa might be a possibility too.

hoodedkingcobra is correct. At least that it is giberish. The root to stemm system of many of the plants is also antother give away. The lack of veins in leafs. Really the good penmanship on writing and lack of real detail on the plants is a kicker.The writing lacks any emotion. There is not enough context for there to be a code. The person was right handed, young 12-18(steady hand, low detial), unedumacated but was around people that were. Likely the person did not take credit that wrote it knowing it was jibberish, but sold it as an "unknown" book after writing it, to make money to get an education or buy food.

Methinks some people are getting their historical Bacons confused. Roger Bacon ("Doctor Mirabilis") was 13th century. Francis Bacon (Father of the Scientific Method) was late 16th century. Kevin Bacon was 20th century (sry, couldn't help it).

Har har. An unexpectred laugh was just the lubricant for this somewhat dry topic. Thanks for that.

As a fellow nerd, I like reading the Voynich manuscript daily. It really is an amazing works to behold. If it's a secret inside joke, it is really a good one. If it's an encrypted text, it's really good too. There are some really interesting pictures somewhere in the middle of the book that shows wheels inside wheels, that I always thought that could be the key. But I know no Latin to be a better judge. From the pictures though, 1500's sounds right and I've always thought that.

source of 'Ye Olde Book' may be more elusive than hard science will be able to uncover. consider your having a chance meeting, with someone who is able to clearly describe in detail, more about you than you can recall. what if they describe your past and future lives and the reason why you are here in this current lifetime ?? consider they practice 'Psychometry'(paranormal, a form of extrasensory perception). it might kind of make your day eh ?? more fun than football.

also, by holding something that makes a connection to an object of your random choice, eg. a photo,a sword or even 'ye olde book', they describe all.

science may wish to consider matching results froma few neat folks who regularly use Psychometry andwhy not a few dowsers as well ;-))

Lot's of interesting comments here and lot's of assumptions. To all that I would add this: It sure looks strange that in the Astrology section of the manuscript one of the drawings is clearly describing the Milky Way Galaxy with its impossible to misread spirals. However, we did not figure out what this galaxy really was and how it really looked like until the 20th century, after 1920. For many centuries after the invention of the telescope scientists thought the Milky Way was the entire Universe. As a result, this is either an amazing coincidence or information received from people who knew more about the universe than the Earth man did at the time. The language may actually be the language of another race of humans that once came here from other parts of the universe. Nobody knows for sure, for example, what are the origins of the Latin language.

I hope that they do a better job of Carbon 14 dating on this than the experts did on the Shroud. Turns out that the sample on the Shroud was taken from the wrong area. Makes you wonder about the accuracy.

It sure looks strange that in the Astrology section of the manuscript one of the drawings is clearly describing the Milky Way Galaxy with its impossible to misread spirals.

I must have impossibly misread them. Which picture are you talking about exactly? The closest I've seen are some pictures with circular motifs, including concentric circles or circles with radial, flower petal-like arrangements, but nothing like a galactic spiral.

this is either an amazing coincidence or information received from people who knew more about the universe than the Earth man did at the time.

Or neither of the two.

The language may actually be the language of another race of humans that once came here from other parts of the universe.

You're off your meds. I suppose Erich von D&auml;niken uncovered even more ancient signs of alien visitation? I think hoodedkingcobra has it just about right.

Maybe its the alien version of the voyager probe, their probe gets here, analyzes the languages and materials to write on prevalent at the time, then beams down the message to us. Only problem is, it's "universal" language was a mistake by the alien scientists and nobody on all the planets the probe and its copies have visited in the whole galaxy ever were able to understand the message. Oops.

There is one picture clearly showing skyscrapers, not churches, or mosques, skyscrapers. Another clear sign of time travel.Remember the Ming era Vase a week ago that turned up in new condition in England?

Is there a Historian in the house? Alchemists of that time period coded things in exactly this way, including personal alphabets, writing backwards, using symbols. I'd love to have a good look at this manuscript.

It is possible also that the images and letters are not code at all, but rather the workings of a dysfunctional mind, either through mental illness, or some physiological defect. This might have made total sense to the author, but we'd have no hope of deciphering its meaning.

"Is there a Historian in the house? Alchemists of that time period coded things in exactly this way, including personal alphabets, writing backwards, using symbols. I'd love to have a good look at this manuscript."

Free versions of the Voynich manuscript (at a decent resolution) are readily available. A 55MB Pdf file of the manuscript for download is available here:

Search alchemywebsite.com for the voynich manuscript. Adam has written something about it that might shed some light onto this book. He has"established a link between the Baths of Pozzuoli, an ancient Roman bath complex situated near Naples on a volcanically active area, and the so called balnealogical images in the Voynich manuscript" Happy Reading! Heretic_of_time

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